..*the friends that greet you

Hear the pipes are calling loudly and proudly calling down thro’ the glen*

A warm welcome awaits one and all this coming April, with plans at an advanced stage for the forthcoming UK Scientific Meeting. The Conference offers a stimulating academic programme with outstanding keynote speakers. Many are covering specific areas identified within the BGS rolling programme of CME topics. A wide variety of accommodation is available, to suit all pockets, with the conference being located at the International Aberdeen Conference and Exhibition Centre. The Social programme includes a Civic Reception at the Art Gallery (but it is essential to book early), a Ceilidh with a top class band and a Gala Dinner on Deeside. Book soon for what will prove to be a superb meeting (details and an on-line registration facility at: www.bgs.org.uk/meetings/meetdate.htm. For those interested in exploring the region an infor-mative website provides some of the exciting opportunities in the region: www.castlesandwhisky.com

50 years of geriatric medicine - A profile of the department
For the origins of the Department of Care of the Elderly in Aberdeen we have to go back to 1953 (by coincidence 2003 is the Golden Jubilee of the department, but no expensive gifts will be expected from those attending the conference!) - when two retired general physicians were appointed to look after the elderly in what was then called the Royal Aberdeen Hospital For Incurables. Two years later the first trained geriatrician was appointed, the late Dr LA Wilson. Against public and professional opposition he transferred the focus of activity to the much less socially acceptable previous poorhouse, which was part of Woodend General Hospital, but where there was access to modern investigation and treatment facilities.

This hospital remains the base of the Department today and has approximately 460 beds of which around 360 serve older people. These mostly relate to acute assessment and rehabilitation - including specialist stroke services - as well as units caring for some longer-term patients; (the hospital is also the focus of the elective orthopaedic services for the region). The service is active in the nearby Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, supporting medical receiving arrangements with a step-down ward. Although Woodend Hospital is nearly 100 years old, there has been much modernisation and the new building and the present facilities are well regarded, serving a population of over 420,000. The department also contributes to community aspects of the service in the surrounding Aberdeenshire, with individual clinicians being linked to practices and supporting local community hospitals.

The recent photograph below illustrates how the complement of medical staff has expanded from the original one consultant and an SHO – it shows academic and NHS consultants and most of the specialist registrars only, not the nine SHOs and eleven pre-registration house officers! Although large, we remain a cohesive and friendly department. We support a wide range of specialised clinical services and an ever-increasing teaching and research commitment. The present priority is to interface more effectively with community aspects of the service. Anyone who is interested in discussing some of our local initiatives is welcome to make contact.

Academia in Aberdeen
Although the University dates back to 1495, and had one of the earliest medical schools in Europe, our speciality is a relatively recent addition to the Faculty. The Chair in Medicine (Care of the Elderly) was set up in 1994 following a joint initiative between the NHS and the University of Aberdeen. It is supported by a lecturer and senior lecturer, and related research staff. Recent appointments are already opening up new research, teaching, and clinical areas with Aamir Qureshi taking a special interest in falls and fractures and Martin Wilson becoming an expert on capacity and related ethical aspects. These new activities fit into the ongoing research themes in the department, which involve the elderly patient in hospital, relationships between primary and secondary care, and developments of techniques for assessing frailty and older people, particularly when they involve measuring quality of life.

Over the last two and a half years, the biggest single project has been the European-funded ACMEplus Project led by Research Fellow, Susan Campbell. The project is co-ordinated from Aberdeen and involves eight European centres with the overall aim of developing a standardised method of assessing case-mix and outcome in older people admitted to hospital for medical reasons. The project, which is due to report in May 2003, aims to provide the interested health worker with a tool that they can use to compare the performance of their own unit with others and any interested in this theme should make contact!

The Department’s interest in measuring quality of life, alongside more traditional measures of function in older people with disabilities, began with an evaluation of the SF-36 in patients with rehabilitation needs. Newer studies have incorporated an individualised measure of quality of life, the SEIQoL, which has been developed by psychologists in Dublin and which allows the patient to identify and evaluate those areas of life that are most important to him or her.

A pilot project, which will report in January 2003, is looking at the potential for applying the SEIQoL in routine hospital care. SEIQoL will also be an important measure in co-operative work between our department, the Department of Psychiatry in Aberdeen, and colleagues in Edinburgh, looking at a Fifth Wave Study of the Aberdeen 1921 Birth Cohort. This unique cohort study, set up by Professor Lawrence Whalley in Aberdeen and Professor Ian Deary and Dr John Starr in Edinburgh, took advantage of the fact that all Scottish school children born in 1921 underwent an “11-plus” examination in June 1932. By a variety of ingenious methods the three originators of the study have traced and examined survivors, now in their 80s, and we are looking forward to working closely with them in 2003 and 2004.

Willie Primrose
John Scott
Gwyn Seymour